


The Red Book: TGIO round 3 entry, at the 11th hour

by Sabrina_Phynn



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-21
Updated: 2011-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-10 04:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sabrina_Phynn/pseuds/Sabrina_Phynn





	The Red Book: TGIO round 3 entry, at the 11th hour

**The Red Book**

It's a small thing, yet one of John Watson's most treasured possessions; a talisman against the dark, it was tucked into his rucksack and brought with him throughout his RAMC career as a tangible reminder of home. It has been used to soothe himself back to reality after a devastating night terrors where the faces of the dead haunt him.

Just a slim book, bound in faded red and now crumbling leather with gilded letters, “The Principles of Surgery, Volume I” has been with John Watson since the day Granddad handed it to him, the day he graduated medical school. He can still recall the pride radiating from the old man with the trembling hands as he handed the volume to him to ‘remember how far we’ve come since then.' The faint trace of vanilla trapped at the spine of the book reminds him of the old man still.

Naturally, when this anchor to the past goes missing in the assorted rubble and general disorder that periodically overtakes 221B, John is both concerned and upset. Though the night terrors had dissipated some since arriving, it was his custom to peruse the book before sleep in an effort to ward away insomnia. The combination of archaic language and the technical details were especially effective in producing restful sleep.

Unfortunately, Sherlock was of absolutely no help in assisting in locating the missing book. He claimed he’d never seen the thing and could not be bothered trying to find it. John was irked but kept up his search between cases and his clinic work and even went so far as to inquire if Mrs. Hudson had seen it in her occasional bouts of ‘not your housekeeper, but just this once’ cleaning sessions, but to no avail.

Of course, it did surface at some point in late November, tucked into a dusty alcove near the kitchen, far from where John usually kept it- he supposed he must have brought it down once in a particularly bad fit of insomnia. If the binding seemed to be less inclined to crack and there was an odd slip of paper from a restoration company tucked into the back, it may have slipped John’s notice, having not needed to use the book since spending large amounts of time running about London. November was a particularly busy month with three murders, a forgery, and two international scandals that Mycroft dragged them into investigating.

John was not terribly surprised to find a small bundle wrapped in brown paper chucked casually at him on Christmas Eve with the seasons' greetings, containing "The Principles of Surgery Volumes II and III”. Nor was he astonished at his flat mate’s ability to locate said rare volumes. He suspects that Mycroft may have had something to do with that; he seemed the type to enjoy that kind of thing. But what does come as a shock is the inscription on the inner front cover of all three volumes: _Dr. John H. Watson, 1878_


End file.
